At Penn Hills High School this morning, Chief Burton said, a student was walking up and down a hallway, using a cell phone. School policy permits students to have cell phones but not to use them during school except in emergencies, Chief Burton said.
A Penn Hills police officer told him to put the phone away and go to class.
“The kid refused to listen,” Chief Burton said. “The officer took him by the arm and said, ‘You have to go to the office.’ The student resisted, pushed the officer. The officer, defending himself, took out his stun gun and did a drive stun.”
Chief Burton said a drive stun involves pushing the Taser against a portion of the body and squeezing the trigger, thus immobilizing a portion of the body, such as the leg. He said this affects about a 2- or 3-inch area.
While on the floor, the student was still resisting and was placed in handcuffs, Chief Burton said. The student complained of a headache and dizziness and was taken to Forbes Regional Hospital.
Taser International’s argument is that Tasers are a safer alternative to guns. That’s certainly true, but sidesteps the entire issue. Does anyone seriously believe the officer would have used his gun in this instance?
Tell the student he’s suspended for using his cell phone, report it to the office, and then go about your business. How hard is that?
Arguing that “Tasers are safer than guns” is about as asinine as saying “Tasers are safer than anti-aircraft artillery.” That only makes sense when guns and anti-aircraft artillery are viable alternatives.
As Amodedoma brilliantly points out in the comments, apparently Tasers are not replacements for guns, they’re replacements for common sense!
#31, Patrick, would it shock you that numerous other jurisdictions also now have to have armed police patrolling the igh school hallways, Toronto, Ont. Can. included! Because kids have been coming to school armed with large caliber hand guns and killing fellow students!
That said, it should also be noted that our public officials are not smart enough to realize that these electro shocking devices can kill. If the human body presents the exact ohmage resistance to the current induced, it nulls out the electric impulses from the brain to the heart and then you are in a “flat line” condition. All the CPR in the world will not save you, but only a cardiac defibrillator can bring you back. Why are we not smart enough to also provide our police with other alternatives such as animal capture nets, and tranquilizer dart guns. We treat Polar Bears better than we do obnoxious fellow humans! It is a tough enough job these days for our police, so why can’t we provide them with some alternatives to lethal force? And yes, drug injection dart guns bring with them their own set of problems as to dose, allergic reaction, infection of the injection site, etc., but it is not justifiable to simply shoot and execute or electrocute on the spot for minor infractions of civil obedience.
We also have people in charge now a days who lack vision, imagination, leadership, and just plain smarts! Is this a failure of the education system or have we inbred our selves into a hopeless mess?
So it is now acceptable to use torture compliance on school children for trivial infractions. Appalling.
If there has to be a P.O. in schools, he/she/it should be accompanied by a school official. Had this been the case:
1. The child on the phone would have been accosted by the school official, with the request to cease the use of the cell phone on campus/school property.
2. The child would resist (because children cannot resist resisting. Neither can some adults, apparently, which is why we need police in the first place… but I digress).
3. The school official would suspend the child from school, for violation of school rules, and order the (now trespassing) person to leave the building/campus.
4. Again, children (and adults) being what they are, the child would resist.
5. The police officer arrests the person for trespassing on government property, and warns the trespasser that any further resistance will be dealt with according to the law.
Any taser strike, or gunshot, or whatever, is now seen by a witness, and the school official is actually the one with enforcement authority.
This does not rule out possible collusion between school officials and police, but it should lessen occurrences of unwarranted searches, or violence, on either side.
Or is that too sane?
#25 like hell I will, you love the US? You can have it! Used to be the best place in the world to live. That was a long time ago, before liberals destroyed our traditions, and conservatives corrupted our values. I was a boyscout, voluteer EMT, and navy veteran, now I’m a US resident abroad, in the near future I’ll have a Spanish passport, and pass on renewing my US passport.
the kid was in the right – guard grabbed him (thats physical aggression) kid pushed him away (thats self defense)
legally the guard should be in court on 2 counts of assault – one with a weapon
38,
CORRECT…
# 36 Honky Doodle said, “#31, Patrick, would it shock you that numerous other jurisdictions also now have to have armed police patrolling the igh school hallways, Toronto, Ont. Can. included!”
So? Just another big city hell hole.
1) Cell phone jamming in school, simple matter.
2) As much as I hate cell phones and despise all the idiots walking around with one in their face all the time, it is not a justifiable reason to assult a student… even though I myself would like to tazer most cell phone users.
3) Tazer the parent who buys a cell phone for a child. The reason we end up with juvinile delinquents is quite often the result of parenting.
4) If that was my child, I’d have jumper cables on that cops gonads. Good cops are good, bad cops should be open season.
Thanks ECA, I kind of knew that no one was looking for simple, workable solutions; people these days merely want to choose sides and fight. It’s a shame really. There was so much potential in the USA once. That time is long past, it seems. I mourn it.
But as I posted.
this will make a REASON to make more rules for schools.
Its bad enough as it is.
Its hard enough as it is.
Cellphones have a place. If there was a Problem you could have 100 people calling it in to the proper group, to come QUICKLY.
this is 1 student. This is LESS then .01% of the school population.
But, it will be blown out of proportion and MORE regulations for schools will be made.
For a bunch of TEACHERS this was not a lerned thing to do..
Hang up the phone.
The kid deserved it. He had the opportunity to put the phone away and obey the rules and he didn’t. Kids nowadays have no respect for anything.
Check your facts guys. The Taser product operates at one of two voltages. The M26 at 5,000 and the X26 at 1,200. 50,000 is the arcing current and doesn’t go through your body. And both operate around 0.07 amps. The voltage hardly matters, as long as the amps are low. The newer X26 is pushing 10 times the voltage of your house outlet. Which do you think kills people more, a taser or in-home electric accidents? There’s actually no case of a taser being the direct, I repeat, DIRECT cause of death. Subjects who die after having a taser deployed on them die from pre-existing conditions that were exacerbated by the physical effort and would have probably died just the same if one had not been used. In these scenarios, tasers protect the officers from injury because you’re dealing with a person who’s fighting their own body and pushing past the physical limits. That’s why they die.
Tasering kids is NOT going to get them to respect authority. Quite the opposite. Its a lose-lose situation.
Bottom line, somebody posted another lie. The kid did not get tazered for having phone. He got tazered because he decided to get physical.
As for #49, you are welcome to deal with these kids. I don’t want to. They are dangerous.
Yet more evidence the USA is becoming a police state.
More here:
http://home.comcast.net/~plutarch/PoliceState.html
Very apparent by the comments, most of you have not been inside a school since you attend….a lot has changed.
Some good changes, some bad. Lots of credit to be shared among teaching staff and administrators. Even more blame to be shared between the employees (teachers, administrators) and the employers (taxpayers), but mostly the employers. Taxpayers who haven’t been in a school for 30 years, yet feel fully qualified to tell professionals how to do their job. Taxpayers who look the other way when employees partake in questionable practices (roaming police for hall security)because they won’t have to read about school troubles in the paper.
What’s a child to conclude (or learn) when they find out their parents are pay huge $$ (taxes) to run the school, but never bother to check on the investment. Or worse, pay the taxes in addition to private school’s tuition, then ignore the operations of both investments.
With this kind of education, it’s no wonder no-one knows how to run a successful business anymore.
Student assaults a police officer and you want the officer to walk away. Have you all forgot what school is like these days. Check out the news every day and you will hear stories about school students assaulting other students will school officials are unable to help. Search Google and will find camera phone and school bus vids of this type of senseless violence.